“Christmas Traditions”

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Christmas traditions have been around for several centuries. However, have you ever wondered where Christmas traditions come from? When they were all first celebrated? Why did they become so popular? One may not even ever think about it but there is always a first time to start thinking about it.

Candy Canes is absolutely one Christmas tradition. Candy canes originated in Germany approximately 250 years ago. They started as regular white sugar sticks. A short story states that in 1670, a choirmaster, was in a Christmas nativity service, and he was worried about his children staying quiet so be handed one candy cane to each. He wanted his children to remember Christmas, so he did them in a ‘J’ shape like a shepherd crook. However, earliest record of candy canes come from about 200 years later. Sometime around 1900 the red strips were added and favored with peppermint. Christians say that the ‘J’ stands for Jesus. The White represented his purity and the red represented his blood of when he died on the cross. Candy canes did represent something important in our history.

The colors we associate with Christmas are green, red, white, gold, and blue. However, they all have different meanings that mostly come from the western and northern European. Green symbolized luckiness. The Romans would exchange plants like Holly, Ivy or Mistletoe during the month of January to remind people that winter is not forever, and spring will come soon. Red symbolized blood. Red was the color of holly berries, which was said it represented the blood of Jesus when he died on the cross. White symbolized purity and peace. The snow of winter was also very cute and symbolized the white in Christmas. Gold symbolized the sun and light. Sun and light was very important in the harsh dark winters. It was also the color of one of the presents brought to baby Jesus by one of the wise men. Finally, blue was often with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Also, it symbolized the sky and heaven. In many pictures Mary is painted blue to make her see as if she was very important because at that time blue was a very expensive paint. Mostly, only used by royal or rich families. Christmas have a background story for everything that goes on from the smallest one to the most important one.

Presents are what kids are all waiting for in Christmas. It was said that presents were to remind us of the presents the wise men gave to baby Jesus. The wise men were Frankincense, Gold and Myrrh. Frankincense gift was a perfume that Jewish people use to worship, so that showed that people would worship Jesus. Gold was associated with Kings and Christians to believe that Jesus was the king of kings. Myrrh was a perfume that was put on dead bodies, that showed Jesus was going to suffer and die. Presents don’t come from a super interesting story, but it helped children to believe in Christmas.